Pax Christi USA - PSA e-Bulletin
Pray-Study-Act: MLK Day 2016
In This Issue
PRAY: Celebrating Our Diversity
STUDY: An MLK Reflection Retrospective and an excellent introductory booklet on MLK
ACT: Take action in honor of Dr. King
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On The Web

Purchase and share this prayer card, "A Prayer for Dismantling Racism," in your church and community 

 

 With your local group, study Tom Cordaro's small group process booklet, "For Now We See in a Mirror, Dimly An Anti-Racist Critique of Pax Christi USA's Theology & Practice of Nonviolence"

 

 Join the Pax Christi USA Anti-Racism Team

 

Find out more about Pax Christi USA's initiative to become an anti-racist, multicultural Catholic movement for peace

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January 12, 2016

 


In the approach to the annual holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., we've drawn together a few resources for prayer, study and action which might help you to observe the day, whether on your own or with your family, community, church or school.   

 

 

We hope that this PSA e-bulletin will help to deepen and enrich your experience of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend and celebration. And that it will invite you to take action and witness to the legacy of Dr. King.

 

In peace,

 

Johnny Zokovitch

Director of Communications, Pax Christi USA

PRAY: Celebrating Our Diversity

by Cyprian Rowe
 
May today not be another day of empty promises Beloved God, 
Creator of the just and the unjust, 
Lover of all humankind
share your eyes of love so that we will see beauty in all creation.
 
Let us, God, as we pass this way make it a way that sings
the glory of all your creation and celebrates the infinite variety 
of your divinity in all and through all.
 
Help us, O God, to understand that the violence of "isms" -- 
whether racism or sexism or antisemitism, 
heterosexism or militarism, 
is a violation of your creative will. 
 
Help us to understand, God, that we have neither 
knowledge nor power to know the infinite designs of worlds 
where by your grace we may inhabit. 
 
Help us explore the heights and depths 
of our need to love and be loved, 
to understand that what we hate 
is often our sense of incompletion. 
 
We shout against creations that we cannot love 
because we fear and do not understand. 
We need to understand because we need to bow before them 
as being godly as we too are godly. 
 
Help us, God, and in the spirit of Mary, Mother of the afflicted, 
let us stand by the cross of our own humanity 
loving it and knowing that dying to hatred 
is the only path to salvation 
in the name of our loving Brother, Jesus Christ. Amen.
 

STUDY: An MLK Reflection Retrospective and an excellent introductory booklet on MLK

In 2014 we featured some of the best writing from the Bread for the Journey blog that references or is inspired by Dr. King's witness. The reflections included pieces by Rev. Bryan Massingale, former National Council Chair Pearlette Springer, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, D.D., and others. The themes include racial profiling, white privilege, nonviolence, and more. 

 

Click here to see the full list of articles.

 

Additionally, Pax Christi USA updated one of the most popular booklets in our Peacemaker Booklet series a few years ago, Martin Luther King and the Dream of a Just Community, by J. Milburn Thompson. This is an excellent introduction to MLK for students in middle school on up.

 

Click here to learn more about this booklet.

ACT:  Take action in honor of Dr. King


As a group or individual, consider these opportunities: